Comment 2 for bug 743800

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3.html
The blog post linked to above is about Gnome Shell, but the standout phrase applies to Natty and Unity as well:
"Your computer is not a smartphone"

I could not agree more, and that should be a mantra repeated thousands of times daily by Unity devs and the devs of underlying Natty infrastructure that breaks the "Ubuntu Classic" experience when someone dares to add an applet to the Ubuntu Classic panels. Don't have a fallback if the fallback is not going to work. It's not a fallback if the plumbing is different.

I had a superbly usable alternative to KDE, now both Canonical and Gnome seem hell bent on pushing me to something I loathe (KDE). I might as well go back to Windows if I have to go to KDE. The Gnome 2.x Panels were the highlight of Ubuntu for me.